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Thailand keeps majority-Muslim deep South under martial law

(dpa) - Thailand will extend martial law in the
majority-Muslim deep South until July 18, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said
Friday.

Thailand's three
southernmost provinces, Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, have been under martial
law since October, 2004, allowing the military to arrest suspected separatists
without warrants, detain them without charges for 30 days, and face no
culpability for making false arrests.

The provinces were
placed under martial law in a bid to combat a bloody separatist struggle in the
region that has claimed up to 3,000 lives since January, 2004, when Muslim
militants raided an army depot and stole 300 rifles.

Thailand's armed
forces have welcomed the news that martial law has been continued in the
region, noting that their intelligence campaign would be undermined if martial
law was lifted.

"We will have a
lot of problems detaining suspects if there is no martial law," said
Colonel Acra Tiproch, spokesman for 4th Army Region that commands the southern
region. "Most of our intelligence comes from arrested suspects. Without
marital law it would take us too long to make arrests."

Although some
question the effectiveness of martial law, which has failed to stop the
violence in the three southern provinces over the past four years, Thai
military officers claim their special powers to arrest suspects have helped
them to understand how the insurgency works in the area.

The Thai military
has identified the main separatist organization operating in the deep South as
the BRN Co-Ordinate group, a loose organization bent on creating a separate
Islamic Pattani State.

The military claims
that BRN Co-ordinate has set up a "hidden government" in hundreds of
the villages in the three provinces.

"The insurgents
have created a duplicate provincial administration, starting at the village
level where the BRN Co-ordinate appoints their own village head, called an
Ayaor, or father," said Major General Sumrej Srirai, deputy commander of
the 4th Army region.

"We only know
about this hidden administration because we have arrested some of its
members," Sumrej told a recent press briefing.

As with other
anti-insurgency campaigns, Thailand's efforts to crush the separatists have
been undermined by the movement's strong support from the local population.

Nearly 80 per cent
of the 1.8 million people living in the three provinces are Muslim, making the
region an anomaly in majority-Buddhist Thailand.

There is a
widespread sentiment among southerners that Bangkok-based governments have
tried to suppress the region's cultural and societal differences while ignoring
its economic development and the enforcement of justice.

"In the long
run we can only win the struggle through peaceful means," said Acra.
"We need to make the people like us, believe in us and help us end the
violence," he added.

Thailand's three
southernmost provinces, bordering Malaysia, comprised the independent Islamic
sultanate of Pattani more than 200 years ago before it fell under Bangkok's rule.

A separatist
struggle has flared on and off in the area for decades, but took a turn for the
worse in January, 2004, when Muslim militants, inspired by rising Muslim
militancy abroad, attacked an army depot and stole 300 war weapons, prompting a
crackdown that further inflamed the local population against the government.